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Last season, Carlos Gomez gave Brewers fans something positive to discuss. Gomez posted the best numbers of his career across every major offensive category and won a Gold Glove for his stellar center field play. Yet, Gomez’s performance was only part of the story. His breakout season occurred after the Brewers’ front office signed him to a long-term deal. If the Brewers hadn’t been proactive, Gomez would have become a free agent, making this a very different off-season for the Crew.

Instead, the Brewers gave Gomez $4.3 M last year, his final arbitration eligible season. They then bought out his first three years of free agency for $24M — $7 M for 2014, $8 M for 2015, and $9 M for 2016. After last season’s performance, it would be safe to say that, if Gomez was a free agent this off-season, Scott Boras probably would have gotten him more than $24 M over three years.

Now, I don’t know what other glorious statistical cherry picking would fill this hypothetical Boras binder on Gomez, but I do know one thing: the majority of it would focus on Gomez’s offensive performance over the last two seasons. Or, even more specifically, the last season and a half. Here are his 2012 first and second half splits –

2012

PA

AVG

OPS

HR

SB

1st Half

178

.233

.703

5

11

2nd Half

274

.278

.809

14

26

Collectively, Gomez managed a .260 AVG / .768 OPS in 2012. Both were career highs at the time, and the first season Gomez pushed his OPS over .700. It also became the first time, at the major league level, that Gomez’s offense was statistically above average, though only by a slim margin. His 104 wRC+ shows just how close he came to average in 2012. (100 wRC+ is league average, meaning Gomez was 4% better than a league average player).

Now here are his first and second half splits for 2013 –

2013

PA

AVG

OPS

HR

SB

1st Half

362

.295

.870

14

21

2nd Half

228

.265

.799

10

19

Overall, Gomez hit for a .284 AVG / .843 OPS last year. With his 130 wRC+ showing that he had become an above average offensive force.

With the dramatic jump in power, AVG, and OPS between the first and second halves of the 2012 season, it’s easy to see why a Boris binder on Gomez would hone in on the last season and a half. It would proclaim that Gomez turned a corner, figured it all out, made the necessary adjustments, etc. All attributes that standard player prediction models don’t factor into their equations.

Since Gomez’s adjustments are not hard data, Steamer and Oliver, projection systems featured at Fangraphs, don’t factor them into their equations. Only their repercussions do. These systems only see that Gomez had two above average seasons in addition to a bunch of below average seasons. Each projection system has their own angle on the data, but none can factor in how an adjustment permanently changed Gomez’s approach at the plate.

So what is expected of Gomez in 2014? Stellar defense seems a certainty, but how much do the projection systems believe in Gomez’s offensive?

AB

AVG

OPS

HR

SB

Steamer

568

.254

.746

21

33

CAIRO

439

.268

.805

20

29

Oliver

544

.274

.819

25

36

The Steamer and Oliver predictions can be found here and Cairo predictions here. On first blush, each projection expects Gomez to regress in 2014. To what degree is the main difference.

Steamer is the least optimistic about Gomez’s upcoming season. They see Gomez’s average returning to his career norm, which is .255. It does believe that the power will stick as the projected .746 OPS is still above his .710 career average. But, overall, Steamer predicts that 2014 will be more like 2012 for Gomez. Their 104 wRC+ prediction exactly matches Gomez’s 2012 output.

CAIRO sees a more productive 2014 season for Gomez than Steamer, but that doesn’t necessarily make for a rosier outlook. CAIRO’s projections fall in line with what Gomez did the second half of last season. Similar power, AVG, and OPS but not nearly as many steals (Gomez had 19 SB in only the second half of 2013). The reason why? CAIRO expects Gomez to have only 439 AB next year. Last year, players who had around 439 AB, and drew a similar amount of walks as Gomez, played in between 124 to 142 games. That means CAIRO thinks Gomez will miss at least a month of the season due to injury.

Finally, Oliver has the most faith that the Gomez from last season will be back. While they predict that his AVG and OPS will dip, they see him hitting one more home run and stealing only a few less bases. Overall, Oliver pencils in Gomez for a 125 wRC+ campaign in 2014. Much closer to his 2013 levels than 2012.

So which of the three projections should a Brewers fan believe? To determine that, let’s dig deeper and see if Gomez’s 2012 adjustments show up in any other advanced metrics and what they might tell us.

All three 2014 projections factored in a lower BABIP for Gomez. Last year, Gomez set a career high with a .344 BABIP. His career average is a .311 BABIP. Next year, Steamer expects a .303 BABIP and Oliver .330 BABIP. On this front, I would tend to agree with Oliver’s more optimistic prediction. To understand why, let’s look at Gomez’s BABIP splits over the last two seasons –

BABIP

2012 (1st Half)

.277

2012 (2nd Half)

.308

2013 (1st Half)

.353

2013 (2nd Half)

.328

Since Gomez’s 2012 adjustment, his BABIP split has never been as low Steamer’s 2014 projection. BABIP involves a small degree of luck but, more so, it falls inline with a player’s historical trends. Gomez’s recent trend doesn’t suggest his BABIP will slip below .300. Looking at his batted ball splits shows why.

LD%

GB%

FB%

GB/FB

HR/FB

2012 (1st Half)

17.8

34.7

47.5

0.73

8.9

2012 (2nd Half)

15.8

43.7

40.5

1.08

18.2

2013 (1st Half)

18.4

42.6

38.9

1.09

14.7

2013 (2nd Half)

26.3

36.5

37.2

0.98

19.6

First off, let’s talk about line drives. Line drives are most likely to become hits and, last year, Gomez hit more of them than ever before. That’s great because Gomez hit for a .700 AVG on line drives last year. Gomez’s 26.3 LD% in the second half is an extremely encouraging sign, though I don’t expect him to maintain that clip. For reference, Robinson Cano had a 26.0 LD% last season. But Gomez’s increasing LD% signals his ability to square up balls better.

Now, there’s been a lot of talk about Gomez adjusting his swing to not hit the ball on the ground as much. Yet, the data above shows that Gomez’s best two halves came when he put the ball on the ground the most. Gomez’s best AVG and OPS season splits came when his GB/FB ratio peaked, above 1. Even at its highest, Gomez’s GB% is below league average. But that doesn’t mean Gomez is trying to lift every ball off the ground, as is evidenced by his FB%.

As you can see, Gomez’s FB% has steadily dropped over the past two seasons. He’s still hitting fly balls at above the league average FB%, but not nearly as much as he previously did. The good news is that more of the fly balls Gomez hits are becoming home runs. His HR/FB ratio has jumped significantly since the start of the 2012 season and it isn’t due to luck. As ESPN’S Home Run Tracker shows, Gomez’s power spike is legit –

HR

Avg. True Distance

Avg. Std. Distance

2010

5

381.2

379.6

2011

8

352.8

352

2012

19

401.8

399.7

2013

24

401.5

398

With the pressure to be a ground ball machine off of him, Gomez is not afraid to let it rip when he sees a pitch he likes. It’s resulting in better contact, as his LD% indicates, and more power on pitches he can elevate. For these reasons, I’m optimistic that Gomez’s 2014 BABIP will land closer to the .330 predicted by Oliver.

Of course, any Brewers fan that watched Gomez at the end of last season will remember how often he swung himself out of his shoes. Gomez’s increased LD% and HR/FB were accompanied by a spike in strikeouts. This has some prognosticators worried. Here’s a look at Gomez’s plate disciple splits over the last two seasons.

K%

BB%

BB/K

2012 (1st Half)

22.5

5.1

0.23

2012 (2nd Half)

21.2

4.0

0.19

2013 (1st Half)

23.2

4.4

0.19

2013 (2nd Half)

27.2

9.2

0.34

Gomez’s second half spike in Ks wasn’t good, but it wasn’t all bad news either. As you can see, Gomez more than doubled his BB% too. So even though Gomez’s AVG was 30 points lower in the second half, his OBP was slightly higher — .337 OBP for the first half and .339 for the second half.

In addition, Gomez’s home run rate stat also increased in the second half.

2013

PA

HR

HR%

1st Half

362

14

3.9%

2nd Half

228

10

4.4%

Meaning, Gomez could have been going balls-to-the-wall on more pitches, which would account for his increased HR% and for falling over himself when missing. So, though no Brewers fan wants to see Gomez continue to K at a 27% clip, even that cloud had a silver lining.

In the end, the majority of Gomez’s stats show that he turned a corner during the second half of the 2012 season. Personally, I think that some projections still undervalue Gomez because they can’t factor in that his approach at the plate has changed for the better. But it’s not a bad thing that some folks think Gomez may hit .255 this year. It’s definitely better than having a Boris binder inflating expectations to unattainable heights.

For the 2014 season, even if Gomez regresses to the range of a .270 AVG/ .810 OPS, his speed, power, and defense will make him an extremely valuable player. A player worthy of every cent of the $7 M that the Brewers’ will pay him.

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Comments

Tell us what do you think.

Matt T says:February 24, 2014

Since you’ve attempted to show a “mental”/technique change in his game, and make it jive with his numbers, here’s another thought: could you also look and pin-point a potential “mental” adjustment when Braun went MIA?

GoGo, when he was at his best, always struck me as a guy that would let the scenario dictate his play. I wonder if he started pressing when Braun went away and felt (felt, not reasoned) that he needed to be a driving offensive force in the line-up. One thing that we ALWAYS heard when GoGo was a new commodity to the team, was that he tried to make the game do what HE wanted, and wouldn’t (to use a hackneyed phrase) “let the game come to him”. It seemed that the progress that he made in 2012/13 was realizing his true talents and using them appropriately (as opposed to swinging for the fences every time).

At the beginning of last season, I noticed that CarGo was hitting the ball the other way with more frequency, authority, and even situationally which made me feel that he had turned the corner. In the past he would corkscrew himself into the ground on an 0-2 pitch at his eyes instead of taking or shortening up on pitcher’s counts.

At the end of the year last year, things seemed to regress. It was pretty clear that he was trying to hit homeruns as many home runs as he could as personal goal – and the crew was out of it anyway. Love what CarGo brings to the table and think he’ll have a good year in 2014. Can’t wait for that Yankee’s series and the first time he steps to the plate with McCann behind the dish….

So you might be on to something. Whether Gomez’s struggles occurred because he was overcompensating for Braun’s absence, or because of other factors, I can’t say for sure. But the dip is clearly in the numbers. This is another reason I’m bullish on Gomez this season. He “regressed” to old Gomez in August but was “new” (OPS over .800) Gomez every other month.

In fact, my mouth salivates thinking about Gomez hitting in the two slot, behind Segura and before Braun. I believe Gomez’s approach has changed and, if you give him pitches to hit, he’ll make you pay. Of course, an argument could be made that Braun should bat in the two hole and Gomez third. Either way, giving Gomez protection from either Braun or Ramirez would definitely benefit Gomez this season.